Damon's Adventures: #ESOTU 2 - On the road to Daggerfall

Ladies and gentlemen, guys and gals, how's it going? I'm back with Update 2 of most likely only two on my adventures in The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited.

As I mentioned in the last blog post, I had created Mathyn Aris, a Dunmer sorcerer of the Daggerfall Covenant, I gave the brief overview of the tutorial area looking cool, prattled on about the variety of options to character creation in ESOTU, and I promised I'd return with part two of the blog post for the introduction of the game to me, which we'd cap off at the end of Stros M'kai.

Well, I lied, Stros M'kai, while pretty to look at, was short enough to get through for the quests that push the story and get me out of the area that I decided to include Betnikh in it. And, the merry band that I put together in Stros M'kai came along and were again instrumental in helping with this new zone, so I figured the two were both related, since I had to do both to hit the mainland.

So, how did it go?

Well, when I first stepped off into Stros M'kai, I just want to say that the area was beautiful! I hadn't played Redguard, so I had no idea what the area would look like, short of vague ideas from lore and watching a solid 5 minutes of Redguard on YouTube ages ago.

Architecturally, the city was beautiful! Beyond my expectations! The Mid-East looking architecture really fits into the look of this pirate haven. I must have spent a good long while just exploring the area.

Anyway, once I got there, I did the Daggerfall Covenant quests, gathering the three men for the Captain lady who shipped me around, we did her heist and helped out with the things we had to help with, and I think the highlight of the Dwemer ruin I had to explore with Neramo. He was probably the highlight of the three characters I had to bring to work with the captain, at least from the perspective of my scholarly sorcerer.

That Jakarn is a pretty smooth cat as well, though he wasn't quite as interesting to be around. Struck me as your stereotypical smooth-talking rogue. Lerisa, I didn't care much for, as I didn't see much of her. I also didn't use her disguises. It was easy enough with my magic and my Familiar that I always have running with me to kill the enemies. The help from other players didn't hurt, although as I like to run as a lone-wolf the combat assistance was tiring all but one time... I was actually saved from a boss fight by having someone join in, which had enabled me to pull back to range to focus on getting healed up and hit it from distance with my maple lightning staff.

Betnikh was quite beautiful as well, once I got there. As with Stros M'kai, I actually didn't do all the side quests, focusing only on the Daggerfall Covenant quests. I didn't have any preconceptions of what Betnikh would be like, unlike with Stros M'kai, but the Orcish land was visually stunning and a blast to explore, especially at the end of the DC quests for the area where we went to that Ayleid Ruin. The massive exterior and the interiors were beautiful, and it was quite enjoyable to hang around there and explore.

I kinda P.O.'d Captain Kaleen in that questline, though. I had to choose with the magical artifact that was raising dead to fight the Orcs whether to banish it and keep the Orcs happy, or keep Kaleen happy by keeping it for the Covenant. I went with the first, thinking that keeping potential members of the DC happy and willing to join would be more beneficial than alienating them in the long run.

The one gripe I have about ESO is how short the dungeon runs are. It's a nothing commute to get from Point A to Point B, and the enemies are so easy to kill when you're dealing with several unwanted helpers banded together, meaning I was able to move quite quickly through the areas.

I suppose the developers have their reasons for short, easy to finish dungeons, but it's a slight letdown for me, having linear runs when I like to explore them and take my time.

Anyway, as of the writing of this post, I've taken the petition for the Orcs of Betnikh to join the Covenant to Daggerfall, I've joined the Mages Guild, and I think I want to backtrack to Stros M'kai, do the side quests that I never did there and in Betnikh, and I want to really take my time loitering and checking out the area and exploring before returning to the mainland to pursue various other tasks.

I have to say, despite being a fun game, World of Warcraft killed the Warcraft series in my opinion, despite being such a cash machine for Blizzard, and I was skeptical going into ESOTU that it wouldn't be an Elder Scrolls game for me that I'd enjoy, but the lore is good for the most part (retconning books from the older games into the 2nd Era is still bizzare though), it's quite fun and I'm having a good time with it, despite those wankers who rabbit hop the map that I mentioned in the last post and the unwanted combat and exploration help that comes with being in an MMO with a bunch of people around you.